Days of the week in Southeast Asia

One of the most interesting things about a new language is connecting vocabulary in that language with vocabulary in languages I’m already familiar with. I still recall, when I was learning elementary Thai in college, I did not face the same challenge that my peers did, in learning to rattle off the days of the week. The reason: Sanskrit.

The planet-based naming system

Both Burmese and Thai have borrowed from Sanskrit for names of the days of the week. Like most Southeast Asian systems, the Burmese and Thai naming systems are based on the classical planets of Hindu astrology (English also uses this planetary system for the days of the week).  In fact, this Indic planet-based naming system is widespread throughout Southeast Asia, used in most major Southeast Asian languages, including Burmese, Lao, Khmer, Thai, Javanese and Balinese.

Each day of the week is represented by the following planets, with Sanskrit and Pali equivalents provided below:

Day	Planet	Sanskrit	Pali
Sunday	Sun	Ādityavāra [1] အာဒိတျဝါရ	Ravivāra ရဝိဝါရ
Monday	Moon	Candravāra [2] စန္ဒြဝါရ	Candavāra စန္ဒဝါရ
Tuesday	Mars	Aṅgāravāra [3] အံဂါရဝါရ	Kujavāra ကုဇဝါရ
Wednesday	Mercury	Budhavāra ဗုဒ္ဓဝါရ	Budhavāra ဗုဒ္ဓဝါရ
Thursday	Jupiter	Bṛhaspativāra [4] ဗၖဟသ္ပတိဝါရ	Guruvāra ဂုရုဝါရ
Friday	Venus	Śukravāra ၐုကြဝါရ	Sukkavāra သုက္ကဝါရ
Saturday	Saturn	Śanivāra ၐနိဝါရ	Sanivāra သနိဝါရ

[1] Also Ravivāra, which is preferred in South Asian languages.
[2] Also Somavāra, which is preferred in South Asian and insular Southeast Asian languages.
[3] Also Maṅgalavāra, which is preferred in South Asian languages.
[4] Also Guruvāra, which is preferred in South Asian languages.

Etymological basis for days of the week

Etymology offers a window into the histories of the languages and peoples that speak them. While I could make out the correspondence between Burmese and Thai for most days of the week, two days stumped me: Sunday and Monday. Little did I know that this irregularity was due to vestiges of old Burmese in the Burmese terms for Sunday and Monday.

Below is an examination of the borrowings in Burmese and  Thai, alongside other regional languages including Mon and Khmer, Lao and Shan. For the purposes of legibility, the word for ‘day’ has been omitted from the comparisons below. Burmese follows Pali and Sanskrit syntax in that the word for ‘day’ is suffixed to the planet name, while in the others (Khmer, Mon, Thai, Lao, and Shan), the word for ‘day’ is prefixed to the planet name.

Language	Word for ‘day’	Pronunciation (IPA)
Pali	—vāra or —varo
Sanskrit	—vāra
Burmese	—နေ့	/nḛ/
Khmer	ថ្ងៃ—	/tŋay/
Mon	တ္ၚဲ—	/ŋoa/
Thai	วัน—	/wan/
Lao	ວັນ—	/wán/
Shan	ဝၼ်း—	/wan4/

Sunday

Sunday literally means “Sun’s day” in English. Except for Burmese, the others have borrowed from the Sanskrit word for ‘sun,’ āditya.

SANSKRIT အာဒိတျ Āditya	⟶	KHMER អាទិត្យ /ʔaatɨt/
		MON အဒိုတ် /ətɜ̀t/
		THAI อาทิตย์ /aaˈtʰít/
		LAO ອາທິດ /aː tʰīt/
		SHAN ဢႃတိတ်ႉ /ʔaa1 tit5/

Burmese, as the sole outlier, continues to use a descendant of an Old Burmese word, which is attested to in Pagan-era stone inscriptions. According to linguist Pho Lat, the word tanin (တန်နှင် > တနင်) means ‘day,’ while ganwe (ကုနုယ် > ဂနွေ) means ‘sun.’ The latter term has striking similarity to the Mon word for ‘day’ and ‘sun,’ while the former resembles the spelling of a Pali word for ‘sun,’ uṇhagū.

OLD BURMESE တန်နှင်ကုနုယ်

⟶

BURMESE တနင်္ဂနွေ /təníɴgənwè/

Monday

Sunday literally means “Moon’s day” in English. Except for Burmese, the others have borrowed from the Sanskrit word for ‘moon,’ candra.

SANSKRIT စန္ဒြ Candra	⟶	KHMER ចន្ទ /can/
		MON စန် /cɔn/
		THAI จันทร์ /ˈjan/
		LAO ຈັນ /can/
		SHAN ၸၼ် /tsan1/

Going against the grain, here too, Burmese continues to use a descendant of the old Burmese word for ‘Monday.’ According to linguist Pho Lat, the word tanin (တန်နှင် > တနင်) means ‘day,’ while la (လာ) means ‘moon.’

OLD BURMESE တန်နှင်လာ

⟶

BURMESE တနင်္လာ /təníɴlà/

Tuesday

Tuesday literally means “Mars’ day” in English.  All have borrowed from the Sanskrit word for ‘Mars,’ Aṅgāra. All have also reduced the syllabic count from 3 to 2.

SANSKRIT အံဂါရ Aṅgāra	⟶	BURMESE အင်္ဂါ /ɪ̀ɴgà/
		KHMER អង្គារ /ʔɑŋkie/
		MON အၚါ /əŋɛ̀a/
		THAI อังคาร /aŋˈkʰaan/
		LAO ອັງຄານ /ʔàŋkʰáːn/
		SHAN ဢင်းၵၼ်း /ʔaŋ4 kan4/

Wednesday

Wednesday literally means “Mercury’s day” in English. All have borrowed from the Sanskrit word for ‘Mercury’s day,’ Budhavāra. While Khmer, Thai, Lao and Shan have have reduced the syllabic count substantially (in both the written and spoken forms),  Burmese and Mon both still retain 3 syllables.

SANSKRIT ဗုဒ္ဓဝါရ Budhavāra	⟶	BURMESE ဗုဒ္ဓဟူး /boʊʔdəhú/
		KHMER ពុធ /put/
		MON ဗုဒ္ဓဝါ /pùt-həwɛ̀a/
		THAI พุธ /ˈpʰút/
		LAO ພຸດ /pʰūt/
		SHAN ၽုတ်ႉ /pʰut5/

Thursday

Thursday literally means “Jupiter’s day” in English. All have borrowed from the Sanskrit word for ‘Jupiter,’ Bṛhaspati. In written Burmese, Khmer and Thai, the original long form is spelled out completely. In Burmese, the original ‘br’ sound may have elided into a ‘ky’ sound, as it is the only language whose word for Thursday does not begin with a ‘p’ sound. Shan and Lao have substantially reduced their spoken forms, to one or two syllables.

SANSKRIT ဗၖဟသ္ပတိ Bṛhaspati	⟶	BURMESE ကြာသပတေး /ʧàðəbədé/
		KHMER ព្រហស្បត្ណិ /prɔhoah/
		MON ဗြဴဗ္တိ /prɛ̀apətɔeˀ/
		THAI พฤหัสบดี [1] /pʰá.rʉ́ˈhàt.sa.bɔɔˈdii/
		LAO ພະຫັດ /pʰā hát/
		SHAN ၽတ်း /pʰat4/

[1] Commonly abbreviated to พฤหัส /pʰá.rʉ́ˈhàt/.

Friday

Friday literally means “Venus’ day” in English. All have borrowed from the Sanskrit word for ‘Venus,’ Śukra. With the exception of Burmese, all the other languages have reduced the syllabic count to a single syllable in the spoken form. Both Thai and Khmer still spell out the second syllable in the written form.

SANSKRIT ၐုကြ Śukra	⟶	BURMESE သောကြာ /θaʊʔʧà/
		KHMER សុក្រ /sok/
		MON သိုက် /sak¹/
		THAI ศุกร์ /ˈsùk/
		LAO ສຸກ /súk/
		SHAN သုၵ်း /sʰuk4/

Saturday

Saturday literally means “Saturn’s day” in English. All have borrowed from the Sanskrit word for ‘Saturn,’ Śani. With the exception of Burmese, all the other languages have reduced the syllabic count to a single syllable in the spoken form. Both Thai and Khmer still spell out the second syllable in the written form. Burmese may have borrowed this word through the spoken form, because the first letter in the Burmese spelling for “Saturday” is traditionally used to transcribe Sanskrit ‘c,’ not ‘s.’

SANSKRIT ၐနိ Śani	⟶	BURMESE စနေ /sənè/
		KHMER សៅរ៍ /sav/
		MON သ္ၚိသဝ် /hɔeˀ sɔ/
		THAI เสาร์ /ˈsǎw/
		LAO ເສົາ /săo/
		SHAN သဝ် /sʰaw1/